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What the house culture meant for me in 1988 was a chance to break out of an indie rock scene that had become dark and dull. It was going from standing listening to drones (don't get me wrong, I like drones) while balancing a plastic pint in a sea of people wearing black, to feeling like part of something that was really happening.

I recall I particularly appreciated the outbreak of bright colours. Black can be a tyranny.

I was never into the indie stuff either. I know it's sacrilege to say so these days, but the Dunedin Sound passed me by, and the Flying Nun stuff left me cold. So the advent of House was never a revelation to me as such, just a continuation from the disco music that I have always loved. I'm all about the dancing.

Just re-read the original post and I get it now. It was all in the timing.Back in 1985 I was going through a strange time, just got back from Nepal after a tragic love trist that cost me my marriage of 8 years, moved back to Greenwich into a flat overlooking the Thames. I hooked up with some old mates, one of them being Jools Holland and another, a mate from further back, Chris Difford, they had just formed Squeeze, UK Squeeze as they were known here. Anyhoo. We had differing opinions of where the music was going. Having a background in the recording industry I played a lot with tape and electronic gizmos and having dropped guitar playing after a hopeless jam with Mark Knopfler, back in the late 70's, and feeling talentless, I took to tearing stuff apart. I reworked Bonnie Rait's "Who But A Fool (Thief Into Paradise), cutting and splicing in the old school way, extending the middle break and bouncing the lyric around with repetitive hooks, I thought it was great, everyone else thought it was crap. They thought it crap for several reasons, mostly because Bonnie Raitt was just not cool but also "It wasn't Music" I still think it was good. In my low-fi home studio I knocked out all kinds of weird and wonderful stuff and became known as "That Idiot Barnes" After a while I was just not cool enough around the local wannabes and decided to come to New Zealand. I arrived in early 1986 when all was Grey and Pink and they were making money out of money here, about the same time as all you lot left and experienced my legacy back in the UK, apparently it caught on just after I left, bummer eh?;-)

Yesterday was my psychic day. I know it was cause my language transforms into Yoda-like utterances, and I grow hairs in my ears that give them a slightly pointed look.I also correctly foresaw friends were going to see Rango. Which I want to see again. That quick fire dialogue in animations is a bugger to keep up with.

Really I was born a decade or 2 too early to fully appreciate and understand dance culture and also spent the 80's being a parent with all the financial and time constraints that brought with it. Consequently house/dance/hip hop/rap doesn't really figure in my musical DNA. My default setting has always been around Neil Young/Dylan/singer songwriter stuff and whatever spins off that axis yet last week I pounced on a vinyl copy of New Order's Sanctuary in the second hand shop. Weird though how Bonnie Raitt and Little Feat can end up in a thread about house music. And Jackie I too have a soft spot for KC's Get Down Tonight.

What I loved about Ten City (apart from the fact they may have been the only trio ever to have two guys called Byron as members) was that they so perfectly referred to and drew from the great male soul/R&B vocal group tradition which goes back via the Miracles, Temptations etc to the likes of The Ravens and the doo-wop. They kinda tied it all together and were one of the last major acts in a now almost extinct lineage.

The irony is that producer and mentor of Ten City, Marshall Jefferson - one of the most important creators in the whole scene and vastly influential - personal tastes veer towards heavy metal and hard rock.

The irony is that producer and mentor of Ten City, Marshall Jefferson - one of the most important creators in the whole scene and vastly influential - personal tastes veer towards heavy metal and hard rock.

Well, as a teenage metalhead, I got into it all arse-backward - started listening to crazy industrial stuff - KMFDM, Einstürzende* Neubauten, Coil, etc (now there's some tunes that'll really get a party started and a smile on every dial), and realised that there wasn't really all that much difference conceptually between that stuff and the harder techno. Maintaining a hardcore tribal position after that seemed a bit daft. And here we are. Got some strange looks turning up to clubs and parties with long hair and in all my bogan gear, though.

Well, as a teenage metalhead, I got into it all arse-backward - started listening to crazy industrial stuff - KMFDM, Einstürzende* Neubauten, Coil, etc (now there's some tunes that'll really get a party started and a smile on every dial), and realised that there wasn't really all that much difference conceptually between that stuff and the harder techno.

And before that, Cabaret Voltaire, Clock DVA et al. So yes, the electronic music was already there. In Sheffield, the same people essentially moved on via Warp Records and made dance music. Bleep!